It's about applying the lessons, not just learning them

The Ofsted report, published today, 'Learning lessons from serious case reviews: year 2' is fairly damning with regard to the impact of these reviews in tackling child abuse. 34% of the reviews were judged inadequate. Despite the introduction talking about actions as well as 'lesson learning' the upshot is that not enough applying the lessons from previous cases seems to take place. Indeed the previous report in 2008 was even entitled 'Learning lessons, taking action'. All too often organisations put huge efforts into gathering evidence and understanding root causes but not enough into finding ways of expediting the necessary changes. The KIN 'Learning from Practice' group emphases that lessons are not actually learned until they are applied.